I certify that I have given flight instruction in a complex airplane to Mr./Ms. _____________________ holder of pilot certificate #___________________, and find him/her competent to act as PIC in complex airplanes.

Congratualtions Neil! For what it's worth, I'd recommend that you get in the habit of glancing over and confirming that you've got "3 Green" on short final. Trust me on this, it will save your bacon one day. Also, a procedure that I picked up years ago when I was at the majors (and we have used for years where I work now) is to not take your hand off of the gear lever until the pilot(s) has confirmed "Gear Down, 3 Green, No Red" People have a tendency to see what they expect to see, so make sure you always verify it.
Jetguy

Just call me paranoid, but being an old timer who almost had one of the mains on the first model of the Cessna 210 fold up on me (I heard it "rattle" as I touched down so I cobbed it and went around to recycle) , I always ask the right seat passenger if they see a wheel. Then I pay attention to where they look. If they look behind the right shoulder, the green is probably good; if they look straight down or forward then its "Houston, we have a problem" time. I, of course, check the gear on my side. I know that you can't do that in the Arrow but you can pay attention to my gear indicator # 2, which is differential drag on gear extension. Be wary if the nose "hunts" while the gear is in transit because something caused that. Gear indicator # 3 is the gear lights and # 4 is a smooth roll out. As far as keeping your hand on the gear handle...hmmm. I prefer to keep my hand on the throttle because I had a throttle creep back on me on a night takeoff and I began to wonder why the airplane wasn't climbing. When you progress to an instrument rating, the hand must always be on the throttle during an instrument approach. I'd rather, on the whole, land on the runway with the gear up than hit a mountain with the gear down. As you might guess, my instrument instructor was a Burma Hump veteran.

Recycle: what I meant to say is if the passenger looks down or slightly behind, the gear is probably locked. If they look way behind the right shoulder, there is a problem. If they look around and say, "What wheel?" there is a definite problem.

As always I appreciate the words of advice from the "old-timers." You've been there and done that so I'm always interested in what you have to say.

I think it's a preference thing as to where to place your hands. So far the way I've been taught and what is echoed by Jetguy is to keep said hands on the gear handle. I think I'm going to keep my hands there.

It certainly is a "preference thingy", but for Pete's sake, how long does it take the gear to cycle? We're only talking a few seconds here.

One of my personal pet peeves is doing things the way they used to do it "way back when" just because that was the way my old gray haired instructor taught me. A case in point...

A few years ago I was giving a guy a combination BFR and instrument competency check in his light twin. When he did the runup he cycled the props at least 3 or 4 times. When I asked him why so many times he told me that that was the way he had been taught. When we got back to the office I showed him in the flight manual where it was only necessary to do it once - to check the prop governor then continue on into feather. It turned out that his instructor had flown B-24's during WWII. It was necessary to do that on those big radials to flush the cold oil out of the propellor hubs. The problem was, the old instructor had never bothered to read the manual on the new Continentals. Old habits die hard. It's not that it's a big deal, you probably won't hurt anything doing things that way, but all it shows is that you haven't read or paid attention to what is written in the POH.

This thing about hanging on to the throttles for "dear life" is not a bad thing, but again a lot of it comes from the old radial days - some of those big engines had a propensity to backfire back through the carborator. When that happened it would slam the butterfly shut and take the throttle along for the ride. Also, those big engines were known for their vibrating - which also had a tendency to walk the throttles back. With today's engines, it's not that big a deal. In fact with turbine engines the drill is to remove your hands from the throttles once you have achieved V1 - it's too much of a temptation to retard them if something untowards were to happen above that speed.

Back to where you put your hands...
In my humble opinion, it's a very good idea to keep your hands on the throttle(s) when you're on approach and throughout the landing and of course, throughout the initial part of the takeoff. But remember, that there are times when it makes sense to have that hand doing other things too.